ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are
concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets
would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf
generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared
for last week's meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades".

Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than
offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.

The melting of sea ice - fast ice and pack ice - does not cause sea levels to rise because the ice is in the water. Sea levels may rise with losses
from freshwater ice sheets on the polar caps. In Antarctica, these losses are in the form of icebergs calved from ice shelves formed by glacial
movements on the mainland.

Last week, federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said experts predicted sea level rises of up to 6m from Antarctic melting by 2100, but the worst
case scenario foreshadowed by the SCAR report was a 1.25m rise.

Mr Garrett insisted global warming was causing ice losses throughout Antarctica. "I don't think there's any doubt it is contributing to what we've
seen both on the Wilkins shelf and more generally in Antarctica," he said.

Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was
melting. "The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west," he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently
in west Antarctica might not be unusual.

"Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50
years."

Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research
Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the
1950s is 1.67m.

A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30
years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.

the reason why the western antarica is melting is caused by the ongoing pole shift, it moves 40 miles each year, this is why its slowly melting on one
side, yet getting colder than average on the other side.

Officials believe an infected reindeer carcass that had been frozen in permafrost was exposed by melting during a recent heat wave, when temperatures
soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, or 32 degrees Celsius.

“The reindeer, who were near the location, were weakened by heat and herding, which helped them getting infected,” the statement from the
governor’s office said.

Nikolai I. Vlasov, the deputy head of the country’s s agricultural watchdog agency, said that reindeer in northern Russian had not been
vaccinated against anthrax in years. He said that many infected animal carcasses were probably frozen in the area, and that they could thaw and spread
anthrax spores in the hot weather.

“This is an unprecedented situation for Russia’s modern history,” Mr. Vlasov said.

Two worms that have been frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years have come back to life, and are now considered the oldest living animals on
the planet, in what is being described as a major scientific breakthrough.

The ancient nematodes (aka roundworms) are “moving and eating” again for the first time since the Pleistocene age, after coming back to life in
Petri dishes, according to a new study by a team of Russian scientists in collaboration with Princeton University.

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